Egon Schiele: Last Years 1914-1918

The body of work by the eccentric artist Egon Schiele (1890–1918), created over a period of just ten years, is known above all through his major paintings and those drawings from between 1910 and around 1913/14 in which he processed his own emotional states and expressed the inner turmoil of an entire generation in his depictions of the human figure. His later works after 1914, which differ markedly from his earlier ones, and are less well known. His lines became more measured, flowing, and organic, and his figures filled out and were more realistic. In retrospect, the personal and historical changes and events from 1914 – the outbreak of war, his marriage to Edith Harms (1893–1918), and the tedium of army life – clearly had a profound effect on his artistic output. Among other things, Edith Schiele's almost unknown diary (1915–1918), in which she recorded her experiences, thoughts, and feelings in these difficult times, is published in full.